A Priori'
by mlle slasheuse
Summary: [Severus SnapeDraco Malfoy] PostHBP, contains spoilers for up to and including. Reviews are joy. Snape is bitter. Draco is a brat. The Malfoys are really bad parents. Oh, and don't mention the werewolves.
1. Chapter 1

**'A Priori' – Chapter One**

**Disclaimer: I hold no copyright, make no money, take no credit.**

**Warnings: Character death, mentions of non-con and child abuse. Oh, and, y'know, slash.**

**Chapter One**

**I.**

Dumbledore said to go, and Snape goes, because the probability of their remaining alive if they don't is miniscule. Draco is, predictably, worse than useless while Snape's looking (not desperately - beyond desperation) out a place from which to Disapparate. He locks them into a classroom at the top of a castle and draws a circle in green flame with his wand.

He shoves them both inside it. Draco's skin is the same colour as the flames, and Snape hears himself barking that for fuck's _sake_, boy, he's the one who's just committed murder here, now hold on (his own hands are shaking, and worse, but there are feet on the stairs that have only taken so long because noone would think to look for Snape in Gryffindor Tower). This is what rouses Draco, and he stares at Snape with big rolling fish eyes, mouth absurdly ajar so that Snape _knows_ what the brat is going to say for a full half second before the monumental _stupidity_ of over-breeding and indoctrination makes him bleat some nonsense about how you can't Apparate within Hogwarts.

Have you ever actually _tried_, Snape snaps, and they disappear with a pop.

**II.**

They re-appear in a slug-infested, freezing wood with the distant noise of Muggle traffic. The endless lowing of cars and cattle seem to frighten Draco even more than the darkness, and yet again Snape wonders how Lucius Malfoy's son could be so _stupid_, before realising he's answered his own question. Snape's angrier than he's ever been. He's killed Albus Dumbledore. He's fled Hogwarts with Draco Malfoy. None of this was _ever_ part of _either_ plan, and standing there in the darkness Severus wonders - for the second time in his life - how he could have simultaneously gone so very far off both his maps.

The snivelling noise behind him brings an answer. Draco, plucking his cloak around him, has picked his way to a treestump, sat down and started to cry. _Again_.

Exhaling the breath he's held for about three hours, Snape runs his fingers through lank hair and watches Draco shudder. This is not what the Vow asked. _Protection_ would have been something else. What, though? As a matter of immediacy, consigning him to the Death Eaters would have meant destruction. The Order might shelter him, but have never been further from victory. ...admittedly, keeping him in the care of one who is now outlawed from both (Dumbledore's murder a loyal act, subsequent flight its negation) might conflate the perils of both, but if he'd acted rashly in a moment of terror, Snape knows it's too late to act otherwise, now. He himself is no introduction to the Order, and, besides, the boy's loyalties are themselves doubtful. He had, after all, _intended_ to kill Dumbledore. Dumbledore might have talked him down, but Dumbledore could talk anyone down, or up, hadn't he himself -

Stop.

Snape has been awake for twenty hours. It is time they found shelter.

"Draco."

He wipes his eyes on his sleeve, glances at Snape, and starts to cry again. Impatient, Snape strides forward and shakes him by the shoulder. "Come _on_. We need to get out of here." The brat won't raise his head. Frustration rising, Snape shakes him again, harder, and speaks more roughly. "Draco!"

His eyes are red and weeping, and he struggles ineffectually to escape. "Murderer! You murdered him, you -" he breaks down, can't finish. Cries.

At the _stupidity_ of that, Snape drops him with a sneer of disgust, looking down at the crumpled, snivelling child with something akin to hate. Turning, he begins to stalk away through the clearing, knowing that fear of the darkness and cold will make Draco follow him before too long. He does, muddy and shivering, limping along at Snape's side.

They reach (Snape finds) a derelict outbuilding at the point where the wood becomes scrubland, the undergrowth an abandoned brownfield site. Draco looks at it in horror, but then he's never had need of one before. Snape dumps him under the arches, then goes to sit at the door, watching the sky towards Hogwarts, since that's their pursuer's likeliest line of approach. When rose-pink begins to burn in the right of his vision (like blood behind his eyelids), his head falls to his chest. If he doesn't sleep, neither does he dream.

**III.******

By daylight, the outbuilding looks even more of a shell, breeze blocks covered with some tattered grey mess that looks suspiciously like asbestos. The morning is cold, for all it's summer, and Snape knows they need to leave soon. Rising in a series of jolts and clicks, he hunches through what was probably a windowframe, goes to the corner where he left Draco sleeping.

It is perhaps not entirely surprising that the corner should be empty, but the sick shock goes like electricity down his arms and legs and Snape feels worse than he has at any point in the last five days. Turning, he moves quickly and then faster through the shell and back out to open ground, startling a flock of crows used to having only the pylons for company. He searches.

Draco is lying under one of the pylons, about fifty yards away. Furious, and wary of the prospect of electrocution, Snape breaks into a run. He uses Mobilicorpus to bring Draco away from the Muggle grid (an irrelevant thought of Arthur Weasley flits through Snape's head, which does _nothing_ for his temper), and acknowledges a feeling of relief when the boy starts (wakes) and looks around him.

Which doesn't explain why, in the next second, he has both hands round Draco's throat.

"You _STUPID_ and _UNGRATEFUL_ _little boy_. Do you have _any idea_ what that is? _Why_ it is? Why we're even _here_?" He can see a fleck of his own spit on Draco's cheek, and is can tell from the trembling gurgles that he's suitably terrified. Snape squeezes long, callus-horned fingers around the soft little throat, just enough to makes his eyes bulge. His own reflection is pitted in the huge grey eyes, and Snape wonders whether Draco imagines he's about to die. Snape takes a breath. "You are bound to me by a vow, and you will _stay_ with me unless - _whether_," he amends, seeing a mulish look warring in the boy's face, some of his Malfoy pride returning, "you wish to get us both killed, or no."

He lets the boy tumble back beneath him, pausing to consider the effect of his words. Once more, it seems, the boy is terrified. Snape wonders if Lucius ever treated him like this: he's biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. Eyes hooded, Snape folds himself back, far enough to let Draco breathe, but close enough to stop him moving away. Draco's breathing is visibly fast, his eyes huge and wary. His cheeks, hollow as they are, flush as Snape stares down at him.

After a while, Snape traces over that bitten underlip. There is indeed blood, and Draco shudders, having to close his eyes against the sensation. When he opens them again, Snape is smiling, cruelly.

"Get up," he says, pulling away. "We've got a long way to go."

With a look of - what, exactly? Hatred? _Disappointment? - _Draco scowls and shoves away, unnecessarily so since Snape's already on his feet. He starts to get up, heading back towards the hut. Snape waits until he's turned before licking the blood from his forefinger.

**IV.******

Draco doesn't try to escape again, and after a few days Snape knows that, logically, they won't be caught until they want to be. They're becoming more, not less, untraceable with every hour that passes, and (some irony, here) the most cunning member of both sides is the one that both sides are trying to hunt. Snape wonders if Draco realises this too, because since the pylon incident he's become increasingly less terrified, more sullen and spiteful. A certain rudeness has crept into his tone, and his habitual look is a scowl. Snape doesn't care; he'd rather ignore an angry brat than tend to a crying baby.

He finds them a bolt-hole in an abandoned farmhouse near the mouth of the river Avon. There's a small town a few miles away, overfull with holiday-makers. This is fortunate, since in a couple of days Snape knows he'll have to start stealing food for them both. Draco may be braver but he's no more cooperative, and physically, he's probably in poorer condition than Snape. Snape's seen him shirtless once, squalling complaints about the coldness of the water Snape drew him for washing. His emaciation is appalling: sharp-boned arms, and his chest flushed as if sore from being stretched over so many ribs. It makes him tired, though, so in the evenings he sleeps quickly, leaving Snape in the kitchen chair: hunched, insomniac, trying desperately to _think_.

It would be easier to get rid of Draco. Much easier, especially if his next turn is (as Snape expects it will have to be, even temporarily) towards the Dark Lord. Having already killed the boy would earn him credit _and_ prevent a lot of future strife; nor, given the boy's "treachery" and Snape's assured status as Dumbledore's murderer, would Lucius be able to object. Bellatrix wouldn't care anyway, being bonkers even by the stark standards of the Black family tree. Killing - or _silencing, _or Obliviating, or any of the myriad ways to stifle the wretched boy that Snape considers _every single day_ - Draco would also have the blessing of ridding Snape of an appalling irritation: barely tolerable in school, the boy is unbearable out of it. The fact is, the two of them hate each other. The boy _whinges_.

But if he ever wants - or needs - to return to the Order, the murder of a child... Severus shudders, grips the sides of his coffee cup. Only Voldemort has killed children, so far. As if Alb - as if what he'd done to Dumbledore wasn't enough.

Then there's Narcissa. Not the woman _per se_ - just as overbred and neurotic as her sisters, as flesh and blood she's easy to dismiss. The Vow. Snape... shifting uncomfortably, he has to admit that he doesn't know how far it goes. What its consequences might be. In -

A bumping noise above his head makes him start, then groan. Draco is dreaming again.

**V.******

The farmhouse has no furniture upstairs, and Draco was so infuriating the evening of their arrival that Snape had pointedly refused to Transfigure him a bed. Draco (stubborn as a _Gryffindor_, Snape had drawled, making no secret of his amusement) had (predictably) cursed and shrieked and settled down in the LEAST comfortable bit of the attic, where (Snape enjoyed imagining the capital letters) he would PROBABLY DIE of PNEUMONIA. "Oh good," Snape murmured, and left him to it.

The problem? Draco's nightmares. They'd happened at Hogwarts, Snape knew that, but in the lower school Narcissa had sent medicaments, and in later years Draco had presumably learned to control it himself (Parkinson was unlikely to put up with _this_, Snape grumbles, climbing the staircase irritably). The wretched child starts by whimpering, twitching, even sobbing a little; annoying but not serious. Now, however, he's graduated to thrashing all over, knocking his head against the wall or floorboards in a way that even if it didn't _brain_ him (would anyone notice the _difference_, he mutters, casting Lumos and attempting to roll the boy over), makes it completely impossible for the only other person in the house to conduct a decent existence.

"Draco. DRACO."

Draco is apparently determined to concuss himself. Snape tugs, hard. Draco is NOT "lighter than he should be", or anything of the sort. To all intents and purposes, he's a dead weight, a flailing _kicking_ one, and when Snape hauls him away from the wall he responds by attaching himself to Snape's shoulders with a vice-like grip. Snape resists the temptation to put a knee in his chest, and shakes.

"DRACO. Wake UP, you're freezing, you stupid -" Attempting to pin the boy down with one hand and hunt for either his wand or the blanket with another, Snape is totally unsurprised when the window chooses _this fucking moment_ to shatter with the impact of the storm and reflects, arse-up in a sudden shower of rain and breaking glass, holding down a slippery teenage boy who's currently trying to break his nose, that this and _this alone_ is entirely the _worst_ position that working for _Saint Albus Dumbled _-

The realisation brings him up short. And, while he's winded from it, Draco hits him in the face. 

They lie there afterwards, Snape testing his bloodied nose, Draco tearstained and silent from the tremendous slap Snape just gave him. The storm rolls away, leaving the drumming rain that gradually dies on the farmhouse roof, leaving only the draining and sloshing of an ancient house. Snape feels a particularly large raindrop hit his cheek and groans. By morning, there will be a thousand leaks and repairing them might attract attention. They'll have to leave. Beside him, Draco sneezes. Snape sits up, looks at him with distaste. Evidently the boy doesn't have the wit to move himself.

"...you're freezing. Come on."

He shies away. "M'fine." This could go on _ALL NIGHT_, what in the name of _MERLIN_ -

"Malfoy." Draco flinches, although whether from the name or the hand on his shoulder, it's hard to say.

" - leave 'lone, couldn't you just give me a Warming Charm?"

"_No_, you little _idiot_, this is a Muggle area, and I don't want to use any more magic than I _have_ to. Here." He wraps his own blanket around Draco's shoulders, manhandles them back towards the chimney stack, where the damp has yet to seep through. Even that isn't enough to stop the boy's pathetic shivering. Snape sighs, sits back against the wall, tries to ignore his headache. _He'll stop_.

He doesn't, though, and the noise is unbearable; a tinny whimper, gibberish as the boy's teeth chatter and bite. Despite himself, Snape is starting to get uneasy - sickness would impede their progress, and again, there's the matter of the Vow... bloody _Purebloods_, he grumbles, not for the first time in his adult life, and eases himself down. There is, after all, nothing else to offer.

Contrary to Snape's expectation, Draco is actually asleep, which make his shivers and whimperings somehow worse, more pathetic. He doesn't look so petulant and vicious asleep, only young, and if Snape can't actually pity him, he _can_ wish he had some Dreamless Sleep to administer, for both their sakes. Gingerly (his cold bones complaining), he stretches out, joint by joint, and puts an arm around Draco's middle, starting to close his eyes.

In another second there's a wand at his throat.

"Get. OFF."

Snape takes a breath, tries to assess the situation. His own wand is in his pocket, which is under his thigh, which is, in turn, being crushed by the weight of both Malfoy's legs. He speaks very quietly.

"You're cold. Just lie still. There's no sense in your dying in the night."

Draco's expression is so wild that Snape wonders if he might be feverish. The hair at his temples is wet, but whether from sweat, tears or rain it is hard to say. He jabs the wand forwards again, eyes glassy.

"Get off me." Jab. "I WON'T, I tell you, I'm not going to -"

Not sure if Draco's really awake or not, but the wand is a liability. Snape removes it, just pulls it out of his grip with a speed and strength that disarms the teenager and then drives him wild. With a dreadful cry, he launches himself at Snape's throat, and for the second time that night, Snape finds himself restraining an hysterical Malfoy for their mutual protection. Draco may be younger and more desperate, but it's exactly that desperation which alarms Snape, makes him determined to pin the boy, and calm him down by force if necessary. He uses his superior strength and weight, and soon they're back to their old positions, Snape's arms covering Malfoy's, Draco held tight against his chest. Regaining his breath, slightly shocked, Snape speaks firmly into his ear.

"Just lie still."

"NO, let me GO, I -" A burst of ineffectual struggling. Snape traps Draco's leg between his, able to ignore the squawks for the next few minutes while he concentrates on forcing warmth back into the boy. Draco's body may be uncomfortably bony, his hair damp, but he's starting to thaw, from rage as much as the contact.

At least, that is what Snape assumes. When he next speaks, however, Draco's voice is very small.

"...please, I don't like this."

There is something about this voice that Snape doesn't like. A conciliatory Draco might be easier, but it's _unnatural_, especially at four in the morning at the tail end of a truly legendary temper tantrum. Now Draco isn't outraged; he just sounds scared.

"What's wrong?"

A shudder that distorts his whole body. "Look, I just don't like having people here when I sleep. Not so close. I'm fine, honestly, I'm warming up, and I won't - I won't do it again."

Some Malfoy haughtiness, certainly, but warning bells ring in Snape's brain as the boy's pitch gets higher. His breathing's shallow.

"Draco." He tries to make his voice low (an approximation of soothing, the sort of tone he'd use for a Thestral), but that has the opposite of the intended effect; Draco makes a choked noise and tenses further in Snape's arms. Curiosity is overwhelming concern, now, and it's only another second before Snape hears himself asking, "What does it remind you of?"

The boy freezes.

Snape's stomach turns. "...look, Draco, I -" he begins, but shock has slackened his arms, and Draco twists around and forwards, kneeing Snape hard in the groin before he's had a chance to explain himself. Winded (_again_), Snape chokes back nausea and wonders if the pain will make him sick. By the time he's stopped seeing stars, Draco is gone; cursing (and probably _castrated_, he croaks), Snape crawls off to his old corner, where he spends the rest of the night.

**VI.******

They don't speak to each other for three days. On the third evening, Snape returns from the village with the food he's bought or stolen.

As he sets it in front of Draco, the boy looks up. "I hate you."

Snape looks back at him, shrugs. The boy pushes his plate away.

Snape raises his eyebrows, takes the plate, the food, and throws both into the bin.

Draco bites his lip, shivers, curls further into the chair.

**VII.******

A different hideout, much further South. Snape saw the cover of a local newspaper and decided it was time to leave. They made remarkably good time, but Draco's health won't stand many more of these flights. He's barely eating, and the nightmares persist. Snape wonders what on earth he'd be dealing with if Draco _had_ killed Dumbledore, but thinks it best not to say anything. The boy's spoiling for a fight, but not entertaining enough to be much of an opponent. He's also idle, spoilt, untidy, thriftless, and incapable of concentrating on a task for any length of time. He sneers at Snape's books (Transfigured in miniature, always on his person), his calm, his ordered attitudes.

They haven't touched since the night Snape tried to take him in his arms. One morning, seeing Draco more than usually exhausted, Snape offered to brew him a Sleeping Draught. Draco's haughty reply made it clear he wouldn't trust Snape to watch over him, unconscious. For goodness's _sake_, you silly boy, I'm not going to _rape_ you, Snape snaps back: Draco blanches and leaves the room.

Snape doesn't see him again until the evening, when he's visible in the garden, sitting in the gloom. The grass is parched and there are no flowers; Snape wonders what on earth there is to attract him until he sees that Draco's watching some pieces of straw, Charmed to fly like tiny brooms around his head. Squinting, Snape can discern an entire Quidditch team, rising one by one into the air. Draco raises his hand to guide them, once or twice, but is otherwise motionless, letting their tiny shadows flit across his face.

There in the dying sun, between the long shadows and with the last light cast in his hair, Draco is beautiful.

Snape rubs a hand over his face. This cannot go on.

Suddenly furious without knowing why, he grabs some of their food; the bread, the cheese (but not the pate, he doesn't care THAT much); and storms into the garden. Draco scowls at his game. Snape can out-scowl a thousand Malfoys.

"Eat something. Now."

Inaudible reply. Snape rolls his eyes in silence. "Draco. You have to eat."  
The next reply is more audible, and entirely ludicrous. With the air of one consigning his sanity to the grave, Snape sits down wearily beside him.

"You do _not_ want to die."

The boy sniffs. "Why're you doing this to me?" That awful apathetic gaze, the one Snape can least stand. He raises an eyebrow.

"Keeping you alive, you mean?" Draco can't be put off by sarcasm, however - he shifts, picking at a few blades of grass.

"You might _answer_."

With a heavy sigh, Snape supposes he'll _have_ to, shrugging. "All life is precious."

A snort. "It _isn't_. You aren't honestly saying that - that _Weasley's _life is precious? _Granger_?" The idea seems to amuse him, and although it's a vicious and half-witted amusement, it is, at least characteristic of the son Narcissa Malfoy last saw. Snape pushes the bread towards him.

"Eat."

"No."

"You do know I could force you." It's a statement, not a question. Draco flinches, but he's staring down at his wand and Snape assumes he's sulking. Rolling his eyes, he gives up and leaves, the food discarded in Draco's lap. He might sneak a bite after Snape has gone; he's done that before.

Instead, Draco's _Imperio_ is as soft as a whisper, and Snape's sure he must have misheard in the second before it hits him; after, he only has the strength to turn and see Draco's face. Its expression is distorted, somehow feline; catlike, sharp with a malevolent hate.

When Draco calls his _Finite Incantatem_, all Snape's precious books are burnt. Snape's first autonomous action is to strike Draco so hard he draws blood. The look of dreary triumph on Draco's face is the final straw; Snape leaves him on the ground and goes inside, to bed.

**VIII.******

He's not aware of Draco's return but when he wakes it's to Draco's sobbing, high and insistent and louder than before. Annoyed (his _books_, the little fucker can cry all he wants, he's _seventeen_), Snape burrows down under the blankets and tries to ignore it, but the brat's hysterical. Grumbling, Snape shuffles to his feet, lank hair unpleasantly sticky against greasy skin (Hades, he wants a _bath_) and eyes itching with tiredness as he picks his way to the door. 

Draco is asleep on what would have been the landing before the house went derelict; now it's just the other part of the habitable first floor. It's almost as if he's having a fit; he's thrashing and keening in his sleep, babbling confused streams of cries that sound like pleading.

Watching him silently, a vicious impulse makes Snape long for a camera, to take this picture as a gift for Lucius in his prison cell - _look, _he sneers, _your son and heir, your _precious_ baby, blubbering and sobbing in some filthy Muggle hallway_ - except that Snape knows Draco was never precious to Lucius, not really. Not in himself.

...not surprising, Snape reflects, unmoved, and casts the Charm before turning away. He hasn't reached the bedroom, however, before there's a dull clunking noise, exactly the sound an empty Malfoy skull makes when it collides with stone farmhouse wall.

_JUST TO CHECK HE'S NOT SWALLOWING HIS TONGUE_, Snape tells whatever internal force is the arbitrator of night-time lunacy, and trudges back. No - predictably the little bastard's survived, not even AWAKE, just with the interesting addition of a cut forehead to the somnolent histrionics. Gritting his teeth (the last time he had to do this was _REGULUS_, _why were the Blacks not STERILISED_), Snape prods the boy's chest with his foot. No response.

..vowing to use the boy's hide for a LAMPSHADE should the little shit hurt him again (a favourite trick of Mulciber's, and in the small hours Snape is beginning to think fondly of his Death Eater friends), Snape kneels down, and, wand gripped tightly in his remaining hand, shakes Draco by the shoulder.

Nothing.

Cautious, Severus tries again. Pokes his sternum.

With a heave of his chest, Draco stirs and gasps awake, but - just as Snape's expecting to be hexed, at the very least, he sobs, shudders - and falls asleep again, curling around the hand on his chest. Eyes widening, Snape watches his breathing deepen, his face smooth, the flickers and contortions of fear slip away. just to chuck a good Silencing Charm on him and Snape has just decided to retract his hand when Draco hugs it. Clings. Wraps both arms around Snape's, and hangs on with all the tenacity of a small and smelly limpet.

Rarely has Snape been so irritated.

...oh, _blast_ it. Might as well get SOME sleep, it's only a few hours before dawn, and removing the Charm might at least give him some WARNING if the whelp restarts his Moaning Myrtle routine. Grudging Draco _every moment_ of undisturbed rest, he waves his wand (wonkily, given that the stupid boy's holding his right hand) and Draco's breathing, occasionally hitching but no cause for concern, fills his ears.

Snape sighs.

...stupid boy. Cautiously, he stretches out behind Draco, judging this the position least likely to break his trapped wrist. The boy is pliant, and his hair, close to Snape's neck, feels surprisingly soft. This may well be the least unpleasant aspect of their time together - or would be if only the floor wasn't so damned hard.

Draco shivers, and Severus finds himself murmuring nonsense - _quiet, hush_ - and astonishingly, a phrase of his father's,_ whisht_. The boy's dreaming again, however, and Snape tenses, waiting for the kick. Instead, though, he starts up a pathetic whimpering, burrowing back into Snape, shying away from some invisible thing.

Grateful not to be the one evaded, Snape clicks his tongue and rubs the boy's back, trying to wake him up, turn him round. "Draco. You're all right. Come on, now, don't be ridiculous, you're perfectly safe." 

The boy keeps shivering, but does wake, looking up at Snape with huge, apprehensive eyes that are more nightmare than reason. Gasping, he asks distinctly (and it's the distinctness which makes it so terrible), "Fenrir?"

Snape stares at him, a cold trickle of foreboding moving down the back of his throat. By the time he answers, there's ice in his stomach. "No," he manages, after a moment. "Snape. Ah, Severus Snape. ...Fenrir can't get in here."

"Oh." Draco doesn't sound sure; still half-asleep, he's struggling to collect his ideas. Eventually he nods, shivers, and curls back in.

Some long-dormant instinct of pity works on Snape then, and he hears himself say heavily that Draco would, probably, sleep better if he was in.. a bed. Bones screaming in silent furious protest, he heaves himself BACK up off the floor and propels Draco towards the bedroom (wondering which leg he'll have to AMPUTATE come morning, given that one is shrivelled with cramp, and the other ominously numb). Draco lolls along in front of him, head down, collapsing into bed without a murmur. Snape drags the blankets back over him and startsfor the door, intending to sit in the kitchen, when the boy speaks again. 

"Why're you LEAVING?" The tone was is outraged, so petulant, so very very _Malfoy_ that Snape has to bite back a sharp retort. Draco's expression, however, disarms him: in the light from the door, his face looks very very young.

_Which_, Snape tells himself sternly, is _all the more reason_ to_ leave_. 

"...do you not want me to?" _A debt of care_, Snape insists, returning to the bed. _He's _seventeen_, not a _child_... gah_. Head pounding, he perches on the edge of the bed and tries not to just slump with exhaustion.

Draco shifts. Snape see him square his shoulders, test his response before he makes it.

"...stay."

Snape watches him for another moment. Then, raising his eyebrows, he nods and lies down beside the boy, not commenting when Draco wriggles back and into his arms; not speaking, in fact, for the rest of the night. 

**IX.**

When Snape opens his eyes, Draco sits watching him, fully awake and cross-legged at the end of the bed. Immediately feeling guilty, Snape struggles to sit up, wincing at the lurid purple of Draco's browbone (however deserved), and the ache of his own sore muscles. There is something commanding about Draco's poise, something slightly spiteful and devious in his grey eyes. It makes Snape nervous, and, conscious, suddenly, of his own disorder awake (and the uncomfortable knowledge that one of his pupils has been watching him sleep), he scowls. With inherited grace (the boy goes on looking clean even when Snape KNOWS they should both be equally filthy) and more than a hint of theatricality, Draco takes his cue.

"I've been thinking," he announces, and if Snape's eloquent eyebrows discomfort him, he doesn't show it, "about the Vow."

The best response is none at all. This does discomfort Draco, but he presses on. "It's Unbreakable, yes?"

"Ye-es?" 

"Born of flame and Old Magic, contracted between two persons and valid for all eternity?"

"As you say."

"Akin to the Fidelius Charm, more drastic in its consequences than the obligations of the Secret-Keeper -" 

"Yes, yes, all _right_, idiot, where have you been reading this?"

"I'm NOT an idiot, and _anyway_, I've _decided_," Draco pouts, sulky about being prematurely forced to his punchline, "that _you_ should be_ nicer_ to me." It's a lame finish, and he knows it. Snape gives him a look that has destroyed the bladder control of entire Hufflepuff Houses. 

"Is that so?"

Even Draco has the grace to look uncomfortable. Snape doesn't break his gaze, however, and in another minute the boy is whining and yelping and (predictably) pronouncing that NONE of it is even VAGUELY fair.

"And what, precisely, is UNfair, Draco? Shall we list the instances of physical harm you've inflicted on me? The damage to my _personal property_? The _hours_ of _wasted time_ spent searching for _your_ useless and unworthy -"

" - NO -" Draco cuts in shrilly, and Snape presses a hand to his temple. The boy thumps the mattress, kicking at the corner of the sheet in a spasm of rage and tantrum. "NOT wasted, because YOU have to look after ME, it SAYS, and if anything HAPPENS to me, you DIE." He scowls, pushing back a lock of white-blond hair. The poise and Malfoy grace is gone; his underlip is out and his eyes alight with the savagery of a Black. It is amazing to Snape how something so beautiful can swiftly become so ugly. The boy is as weak-willed as Regulus, as neurotic as his mother; Severus is dealing more with Bella's nephew than Lucius Malfoy's son. Unfortunately, the boy is also speaking truth.

"What do you want, Draco?" he asks after a minute, making his tone as uninterested as possible. As expected, this disarms him; for someone capable of such monstrous tantrums, immediate capitulation is still strange to Draco. Evidently his father required some further move of his - negociation might be a useful tool in future, depending on Draco's response.

"... I want to go back to Malfoy Manor."

It's either bluff or stupidity and Snape treats it as both. "Something plausible, please."

"...fine. I want a proper house to stay in, in a_ city_. With _people_. And some new clothes," he adds, as a half-defiant afterthought. Snape considers the demands for a second, then nods.

"Fine. We'll leave in an hour."

**X.******

"But I'm _hungry_."

"That's why I'm GOING. So, you'll _stay_ _here_. I'll be back in an hour, and during that time, you will _not_ _talk_ to _anyone_ -"  
**  
**"...I th-thought you said this was a _Muggle _city," Draco breathes, clutching the rail that's bolted onto the concrete wall. Following Draco's gaze, Snape frowns. It's not entirely beyond possibility that he should have miscalculated their coordinates prior to Disapparating, but it is..._unlikely_.

Then again, so is what's happening in the streets below the car park.

A gasp at his elbow makes Snape start. "Isn't that... a _vampire_?"

"No, you little fool, it's the middle of the day. What on _earth_ are these Muggles _doing_?" Snape snaps, narrowing his eyes at a group of pasty teenagers in violet and black. Antonin Dolohov used to have a similar set of robes, although his were never that... shiny.

"Whoa, those are some _amazing_ cloaks."

Both of them whip round, wands at the ready, defensive stance assumed. The Muggles beam.

"Wow, where did you get those? Deianra's brother ordered ours online, but Cygnus -" Snape can feel Draco twitching beside him, as the girl with improbably red hair indicates a pasty boy with a straggly-looking plait, " - _said_ we should have made our own. I'm Bellatrix, by the way."

You most certainly are _not_, Snape wants to snap, but Draco, wide-eyed, has already slipped forwards from his side. Expression reverent, he has drifted towards the strangers with a reverent look in his eyes. "Can I have some of that?"

"Sure thing." The larger girl (blue hair, vast bosom) offers him whatever lurid and vomit-inducing "sweets" she is eating from a packet. Draco's stomach gurgles contentedly, and he gives them a blissful smile before accepting a handful.

While Draco's eating, "Cygnus" (_REALLY, what sort of a NAME_) shoot Draco a shy, pleased smile of his own. Snape could kill him for it.

He glares malevolently at "Cygnus", who seems to take the hint, retreating half a step and blinking anxiously through his eyeliner (which, Snape suspects, is causing conjunctivitis). Gorging over, Draco looks up.

"I like these people," he says decisively. "Let's go."

There is a pause.

...possibly he could kill them for food, at a later date. Snape shrugs, follows them away. "As you wish."

**XI.******

Six hours later, Severus is drunk, Draco is drunk, and things are more amusing than they have been for days. Muggles, Snape concludes, really are_ stupid_, but this group's stupidity is more bearable than most. He has gathered several things in the past few hours; that these children are credulous, naive and over-monied; that they all, without exception, have too much time on their hands, and that _none_ of them knows how to mix a decent drink. All of this has worked in his favour; he and Draco have been mistaken for another pair of chalked-up, sub-pagan weirdoes; their genuine wizarding artefacts make them the centre of attention; and the general inebriation has allowed Snape to rifle fifteen pockets and an unguarded wall safe. He now has three hundred pounds in Muggle cash, and Draco has had a square meal.

And nobody, _nobody_ would think to look for them here.

The situation, Snape concludes, is hilarious. The flat's smell of patchouli and lemongrass may remind him of first-year Potions classes, but it's warmer than any place they've been for a week. The awful Muggle woman with dreadlocks may keep trying to shove her bosom in his face, but she has, unwittingly, provided them shelter. The idiot Cygnus boy (his given name is Glyn - Snape knows, because the boy's wallet is now inside his pocket) may be flirting outrageously with Draco, but the fawning and misguided attention is at least making Draco (_Lucius Malfoy's son - oh, THIS is the best revenge)_ smile.

And it's good, Snape concedes, to see him smile.

**XII.******

"They're playing a GAME," Draco says owlishly, lurching away from the kitchen table to land more or less safely in Snape's lap. His legs don't reach the end of the sofa. Of all the ludicrous things that have happened so far today, the sight of Draco in eyeliner may take the prize. Unable to stop smirking, Snape rests a hand on his back.

"Who put that on you?"

"Hm? Oh, I don't know. Cygnus. Astrid. Canteloupe." He starts to grin. "Crabbe, Goyle, Potter, Granger, it doesn't much matter, does it?" Chuckling, Snape shakes his head. "This was a _very_ good idea."

"I suppose it could be considered a form of education." Snape smirks, amused by the boy's swaying, the distinctly Muggle wine-stains on his distinctly Muggle shirt. "Ashtoreth", whose flat this is and whose real name is Angela, lent him a spare after Draco spilt relish over the first. Snape, fingers itching for his wand, pushed inside the awful woman's mind (he _hated_ doing that to Muggles - _they_ never knew, but _you_ always wanted a cold shower and a nice sharp fork on which to _spear_ your _eyes_, oh Hades the _vapidity_) and confirmed that yes, the ignorant trollop, _had_ only done it to see the boy shirtless. This pisses him off. He is pissed off about being pissed off.

On the other hand, Draco is making eyes at Cygnus and sulking will do _nothing_ to abate this. Snape smacks his arm.

"Don't use that look on the unwary. He'll have a seizure."

"Mmmm, _seizures_. What?" Draco sweeps the room with a glorious, cocksure gaze. "I'm just extending my appreciation. Anyway, what happened to you, the Great Muggle Apologist?" He laughs, too loudly, and suddenly the drunkenness isn't charming, it's irritating and loud, and far too heavy in his lap. Snape gives him a shove, glowering, but Draco's tenacious; he digs into Snape's shoulders, clutching handful of robes, leaning closer and closer with his sickly-scented lips and his dangerous eyes.

"_All life is precious, _Snape," he quotes, and Snape balks, and would like to question that statement, especially in its application to insufferable teenage Malfoys with small brains, and huge egos, and Hades_fuck_ burgeoning erections pressing against their ex-Potion Master's _thigh_ - which is the moment that Ashtoreth uses to shove herself between them again, and Snape has _never_ been so grateful to see big breasts before.

"We were thinking - seeing as your wife's thrown you out, " Snape looks incredulously at Draco but Draco's staring up at Ashtoreth in a manner that suggests some late-flowering Oedipal complex " - and your B&B's let you down," Snape SPLUTTERS at the room, but apparently _nobody is listening, _"that you and your boyfriend could use our spare room."

Snape is struck dumb.

Cygnus beams. "We have a _futon_."

A futon, Severus Snape concludes, is the bad thing that happens when all the world's other miseries have been exhausted. It is no coincidence that tonight he will be sharing one with Draco. Draco, stung into silence from the _tremendous_ row the two of them have just had, is undressing for bed.

The would-be succubi in the next room, it seems, have been fed a version of events in which he, a Muggle schoolmaster, seduced Draco (a willing pupil), abandoned his wife and family, and - for reasons never fully explained, not EVEN in Draco's fevered brain - brought him to Britain's largest "Gothic" festival in order to consummate their torrid affair. Without (to add insult to injury) having booked them adequate accommodation first. That they should be told this is offensive, that they should BELIEVE it is worse, and that Draco should make it up in the first place is _all manner of bad things_.

Moreover, Snape is NOT comfortable with the idea of sleeping quite so close to the carpet. He's still fighting the urge to de-gnome it.

"I hate your _face_," Draco hisses, undoing buttons.

"My face hates you. For goodness' _sake_, boy, don't leave your shirt on the floor, it'll have LICE by morning." Snape glares from boy to tufted mattress. "Which side do you want? Actually, don't bother with an answer, you're _getting_ the side with the stain."

"What? That is SO UNFAIR."

"Yes. Yes, it is. Now shut up and don't bother me again til morning." He shrugs off his cloak, then decides that's going far enough. Draco stares.

"Is that what you're going to sleep in? Merlin, no _wonder_ they all think you're a vampire -"

" - and no WONDER they think I'm an adulterous and paedophilic SCHOOLMASTER, there's certainly no WONDER in that."

Draco pulls off grey socks and undoes the plain black belt. Snape ignores the delicate bones in his feet, the invisible shimmer of hair that grows below his navel. "...it _wouldn't_ be paedophilia, actually, they know I'm seventeen."

"Really? They haven't mistaken you for a spoilt toddler with the brain of a gnat?"

"Just because you HATE me."

"I don't hate you, Draco. I find you intensely annoying."

"Only because I'm a Pureblood."

"No, because you're insufferable."

Draco turns to face him, all white skin and undone trousers. Severus finds the last bit particularly unnecessary. Without knowing why, he is also nervous. Draco narrows his eyes.

"You got hard when I sat in your lap."

_Oh fuck, he knows._

" - I DID NOT," Snape spits, half a beat late, wondering what, exactly, his subconscious has decided the boy knows. Draco has got the upper hand, however, and he knows it.

Leaning right forward (Snape tries to escape, but the whole POINT of the futon, that which brackets it with the alarm fork, the fingertip toothbrush and the electronic noodle-strainer in _sheer infuriating horror_ is that, when you are stuck on a futon, there is _nowhere to go_), past Snape's personal space and into places even _Snape_ hasn't visited recently, Draco raises an eyebrow.

"You _want_ me."

"I _want_ you to stop talking nonsense, you stupid boy. I had no idea you were drunk enough to mistake your own - penis. If anyone," he glowers, wanting to crush that silly little smirk _out_ of Draco's lips, "was experiencing what I can only hope was an involuntary response to alcohol, stimulus, and the _unbelievable arrogance of youth_ - "

" - so what if I was hard? Cygnus sucked me off in the bathroom."

Snape loses his temper. And hexes the futon.

And grabs Draco by the throat.

...It is immensely satisfying.

"ONE, Cygnus did NOT suck you off in the bathroom. You never went to the bathroom with him. TWO, his name is Glyn, he's a socially avoidant Muggle with PINK-EYE, and THREE, apart from your WHININGS when you decided you'd caught MUGGLE DISEASE, I DO NOT CARE where or with WHOM you stage your sordid little couplings, because YOU are a TIRESOME, SELFISH and IGNORANT little boy."

Draco starts shouting as soon as Snape lets him go. "No, YOU'RE the selfish one, keeping me locked up just because you made my STUPID mother some STUPID Vow I never ASKED to be your PET, I don't want to be ANYBODY'S lapdog -"

" - shame, considering who your father is -"

" - how DARE you talk about my father, you aren't fit to lick my father's boots, NONE of you are, your mother was only a Prince and they're NOTHING to us, mother only called you cousin as a _kindness_ -"

" - oh yes, your mother, your _mother_ who _begged_ me to look after you now your father's gone - SHE knows he won't be coming back, when are YOU going to wake up and see him for the piece of scum that -"

" - _DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MY FATHER!" _Suddenly draco is launching at him, fists and nails flying until what seems like a blind attack is explained: they're grappling for the same wand, Snape's wand, lying forgotten on the far side of the bed, inside his robes. Snape's hand grips Draco's wrist; Draco swears and kicks out against his leg. Ignoring the pain, Snape concentrates on the wand, determined to stretch across and grab it before Draco can do the same. Draco, he is certain, wants to kill him. His face, pale and sharp, is now distorted with a rage surpassing even his father's; held off by both Snape's hands, he digs all his nails into the older man's forearms, leaving ten livid crescents in his flesh. Swearing, hard, Snape takes a chance and reverses their positions, slamming Draco down so hard that the wooden platform cracks. Now it is Draco's turn to look afraid.

"Your father," Snape hisses, "is a joke. He sold out at the wrong time to the wrong side, and _that's _why he's going to die. Not because he's a _victim,_ or a _hero_, but because he's a coward and a fool. And you're worse," he presses on, merciless in the triumph of finally forcing these words down the ungrateful brat's throat, "because you, more than anyone, _know_ all this and yet _persist_ - in despite of everything, the evidence, the logic, your own inclinations - no, DON'T move, you're going to hear this - in idolising a man who doesn't love you, doesn't care for you, has always been wrong. And who is _never_," Snape persists, as cruel as he can make it, " _ever_ coming back to you." He waits. "Who do you think came up with the plan for you to kill Dumbledore? _Think, _Draco, who was it who needed you to save his skin? Who were you _really_ expected to save?"

"...dead or not, he's worth ten of you," Draco snarls, almost at once, but his eyes betray him. The look of shock and desolation there makes something twist in Snape's stomach, but he knows that it has to be done. Not letting go just yet, he stares down impassively at the boy. Draco is the first to look away.

"...leave me alone," he says, very quiet, and Snape complies, pocketing Draco's wand as well as his own as he moves off, going to stand by the window where the air is cool and where he doesn't have to look at the boy's face. He can still see it, though, pale behind his eyes. The small ghost of someone murdered. The - _stop._

Around them, the flat, the house and the thin grey street resume their night-time noises, Snape watching the cars go by and the blanched light they send across the bed. Draco lies on his side now, facing away from Snape. His thin shoulderblades twitch intermittently, and Snape closes his hands over the windowsill to keep from going to him. From pulling him close, taking him in his arms and keeping him there .

If Snape's honest with himself - which a masochistic streak, at moments such as these, often forces him to be - the impulse to gather Draco in is at least as strong as the one to tear him apart in handfuls.

It's been that way for a while now, and he has no idea what to do.

...the knowledge that Draco probably (no, UNDOUBTEDLY) hates him as much as anyone has a right to -

" - are you even _listening_to me?"

Snape blinks. Instead of the sobbing ball he expects, he finds Draco sitting up, peering at him irritably. His eyes are red, and his shoulders tense, but there's no suggestion of a breakdown. Obscurely chastened, Snape nods: more unexpectedly still, Draco moves aside, offering Snape a seat. Nodding acknowledgement, Snape takes it, watching closely as Draco exhales, inhales and squares himself to speak.

"He's always - used me," Draco starts again, and Snape feels his stomach twist in kind. Pressing his lips tightly together, he nods and leans in a little, waiting for him to continue. This Draco does, looking down at his hands, which are white and bloodless to the knuckle. He's twisting them so that Snape almost considers taking one, but quickly suppresses the impulse. "When he wanted to send me to Durmstrang, he didn't _care_how upset Mother was, how much she hated the idea. She couldn't bear the thought of me going so far away, and I - I didn't want to _leave_ -" A sudden flash, for Snape, of the homesick little boy he'd comforted once or twice; the white-blond hair he'd stroked; the _pride_ he'd felt when the boy started rising through his peers, " - but _he _didn't care, he let it go on and on for weeks and when I went to Hogwarts, it was because of what - what the Dark Lord wanted. ...he didn't even _tell_us until the summer. And then at _Christmas,_ always parading me to his friends like I was some sort of lapdog, making me sit with _Pansy, _making sure I knew what was _expected_ of me - you all thought it was something NEW," he flared, turning to Snape. "You think you've got the definitive version, don't you? That the Headma - that _Dumbledore_ was how it started? Well listen to this," Draco orders, eyes glittering and dangerous in the half-light. "It started with Fenrir Greyback. When I was _ten years old._"

Snape can feel the creeping coldness moving inside his skin and through his bones, listening. Half-snatches of memory: as back through the turning pages of a book, he remembers Malfoy Manor, that summer. It was never warm inside the ice palace Lucius and Narcissa had built for themselves; there was never too much noise or unruliness. What a strange guest Greyback had been. His predilection for children was - Snape's features twist as he remembers - of course widely known, and Snape had wondered why Lucius allowed Fenrir so near his son. Or had he? Perhaps he hadn't, at all; he'd certainly been wrapped up in his own private worries, that summer - his jealousy at the appointment of Quirrell, the knowledge that he'd soon be sharing oxygen with another pig-headed Potter.

Draco keeps talking; Greyback had information on his father, _damaging_ information - so did they all, is Snape's nauseated response, but he can hazard a guess as to the sort _Fenrir_ might have had. Fenrir's predilection was unforgivable, but not uncommon (after all, hadn't that been Regulus Black's introduction to the group? Barty Crouch's, too?); in fact, Snape had sometimes wondered whether Lucius himself, with such a son -

No. He had never wondered.

A bargain. It was simple enough, although _God_ knows the risks were horrific - as dispassionately as he can, Snape considers them and is at once appalled. Pushing _aside_ his own feelings for the b - for Draco (something it is becoming increasingly hard to do, because by Hades if that bastard Greyback has a _drop_ of blood left in his body - ), thinking only as a Death Eater, _what_ was Lucius thinking? The risks! Fenrir could have bitten him, Fenrir could have killed him - Lucius might not have _cared_ for the boy, but he was the Dark Lord's property! The _only_ heir that would ever be of any use, had Lucius gone _insane_ -

...and now he's thinking of Draco in the same terms as they had.

Ten. Merlin, it was no age. Not even in Death Eater circles, where childhood and innocence were rarely synonymous and never prolonged. Ten. And to think Fenrir had resurfaced this year, just as things began to really fall apart for Draco. What a blow that must have been. No wonder Greyback haunted his nightmares.

Unable to do more, Snape reaches out, offering the boy his hand. It is an unaccustomed gesture, and he feels foolish as soon as it's made. Draco stares down at the palm until Snape thinks he must be growing HAIR there, or something - scowling, he starts to retract before Draco says regretfully, "Oh, I've hurt you."

It takes Snape a moment to work out what he means (hopefully Draco has imbibed any of the nonsense about Spiritual Wounds that Ashtoreth used when describing her divorce). Then he sees what Draco's looking at: the nailmarks, still deep but with the addition of bruises. The boy's clawing has broken the skin, in places.

"I've had worse," Snape says drily, and they exchange humourless smiles. 

"Probably from me," Draco concedes, laying his hand over Snape's. He does it exactly, as if comparing the sizes (Snape's fingers are longer, Draco's span greater), but there's a hesitancy there that Snape hasn't seen before. He expects Draco to smirk or scowl when it's over, but instead he gets a doubtful look, a troubled look, something tired and pensive that grabs at Snape's heart and makes it hurt.

Draco keeps that look even as he falls asleep, but this time his hand is fisted in Snape's shirt, his head pillowed on the older man's arm. Snape watches him drift off, so close and warm that Snape could kiss him if he tried.

He doesn't, of course. He strokes Draco's hair to soothe him, but no more. Then, still curled protectively around the boy, he drags the cloak back over them, touches Draco's cheek to check he's warm. Gradually, he adapts his body to the angles of the _ludicrously_ uncomfortable mattress (needless to say, he's got the side with the hole. And the broken frame), and tries to close his eyes. It should be more of a struggle, but Draco's breath is warm against his neck, his leg a comforting weight against Snape's own. Even with the distant hum of Muggle traffic in his ears, sleep is swift, and kind, and dreamless.

And above the flat, a green skull begins to glow in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**"A Priori" – Chapter Two**

**Disclaimer and Warnings: **As before.

**Chapter Two**

**I.**

Snape wakes in the night, without knowing why. The sky is still dark, but the moon must be bright to explain the light spilling in through the curtains, the shadows shifting on the floor. Draco (the first thing he checks, still nestled in the crook of his arm) is stirring in his sleep, even paler in this eerie glow.

Something is wrong, despite the quiet and the regular ticking of the clock in the hall. The clock doesn't sound so reassuring now; it ticks like a trapped insect, buzzing and insistent with a building panic. It sounds too loud. And then Severus realises _what_, exactly is wrong: the quiet is not quiet.

It's silence.

No coughs or movement in the other bedrooms, no gurgling pipes, no traffic in the streets. Nothing. No music, no dogs, no clattering dustbins. Just airless, breathless hush. The clock beats louder and louder, the sole noise in that awful silence, and Severus can feel his heart move to match it, pounding in his chest as the light through the window grows brighter, stronger, blinding, _freezing_ before he knows, with absolute certainty, what has happened.

And after that, there's no silence any more.

**II.  
**"Why did you not return at once to the Dark Lord?"

"I might have been pursued - Fenrir! Come _away_ from there. Haven't you done enough?"

Fenrir raises his head from the Muggle woman's neck, his chops bloody and slicked with gore. "Not begrudging me my prey, Severus?"

"I'm only suggesting we don't leave too many clues behind us." He's more worried about Draco, who - eyes fixed on the blood pooling the kitchen floor - looks as if he's about to faint. Deliberately sharpening his tone, in the hopes of diverting him, Snape faces the Death Eaters with a lofty arrogance.

"Of course I knew my Lord would find me when he wanted me. It's the attention _you'd_ attract that gave me pause. Tell me you haven't left a trail of devastation in your wake?" He raises an eyebrow. Crabbe shifts.

"You didn't make it very bloody _easy_ for us."

"I didn't make it very easy for the _Order_, you mean. Surely even _you_ can see I had to put some distance between myself and Hogwarts, first?" Stop there. Justification implies guilt. He stares the older man down, keeps his face neutral. A couple of the other Death Eaters shift uncomfortably, look away: the dark-haired man behind them, however, speaks.

"And what about the boy?"

Snape glances over at Draco, gives him a long, dismissive look that he hopes shows nothing of what he feels. "What about him?"

"He knows too much," thunders Goyle, bringing his fist down on the counter.

"Something that could never be said of your son, certainly. Come _on_, Goyle, what do you propose we do? Kill him?" His throat is very dry, but he makes himself continue. "If every one who failed to kill _Potter_ was destroyed, would any of us be standing here?"

"Speak for yourself," mumbles Crabbe, and Snape turns on him.

"I_ do_. Now, if your orders were to kill Draco now, for god's sake get on with it and try - " he glares at the werewolf - " - not to get blood on the sideboard. But," he cautions, hoping against hope that the frozen terror in the boy's eyes will hold, "that boy is Lucius's son. Bellatrix's nephew. He has always been well-favoured by our Lord. As have I. And I say wait for his orders."

A frustrated Crabbe just looks sullen. "And why should we listen to you?"

Snape gives him a dead-eyed stare. "Because I killed Albus Dumbledore." He shrugs. "Now, let's get on with it."

**III.**

"I see Beauxbatons has been taken," Snape remarks, surveying the carriage that waits in the alley. The sight of it reassures him as much as anything can, just now. The Dark Lord must be pleased with such an acquisition; thus sending it suggests that he, Snape, isn't returning as a prisoner.

_He_. Involuntarily, his glance flicks towards Draco, whose face is waxy-looking and uneasy in the dawn light. Technically, Draco doesn't have his Apparition licence - was the Dark Lord counting on their being together? He's not sure if that's good or bad. Bad, if Draco's subjected to any sort of interrogation. Veritaserum. A Pensieve. ...Legilimency.

His mind is racing by the time they're seated in the carriage. Goyle and Crabbe bicker before the latter is sent to sit beside the coachman; the others follow them inside. Fenrir is still licking the blood from his hairy fingers; grinning gruesomely, he takes the seat opposite Draco, beside Snape.

Snape sees Draco's knuckles whiten at that, and at the first jolt of the carriage's ascent. _Look at me_, he wants to tell him, _look at me and keep looking, it's going to be all right_. But Draco can only stare at the werewolf.

Fenrir looks up, and grins, and in that long yellowy face, Snape suddenly sees himself, licking Draco's blood from his thumb. He glances away a little too fast, and in the silence that follows, Fenrir laughs. 

Snape should be furious at the show of weakness, but he has other things on his mind. Draco. He risks a glance at the boy, hoping they'll make eye contact, but what good is a look, now? As far as Snape knows, Draco has been in the Dark Lord's presence just once in his life, and Snape doubts it would have done ANYTHING to prepare him for this.

_Why hadn't he taught him Occlumency?_ Stupid. Stupid, stupid,_ stupid_ - although an obviously closed mind might suggest collusion, Snape reflects: the Dark Lord knows of his own skill. In his case, the potential danger of too pronounced an Occlumental gift is outweighed (at least in Voldemort's red and slitted eyes) by Snape's usefulness. Draco, Snape knows, isn't useful. Isn't trusted.

Is, he concludes grimly, a failure.

He is also, Snape recognises, with the first gnawing anxiety he's allowed himself, too young, too vulnerable and too... _necessary_ to go through this. Not because of the Vow, not because Draco is responsible for any bizarre excess of frothy sentiment in Snape's own narrow breast. But because there's a part of Snape that depends on Draco's survival, Draco's happiness for his own.

Snape knots the hands that are tightly shaking in his lap, and gazes, hopelessly, at the boy he cannot have, the boy he might be about to destroy. He can't get them both out of this.

But he might manage one.

**IV.**

Draco stays quiet, if not composed, throughout the journey. Watching him, Snape runs through (he hopes) every possible permutation of outcomes. Desperation, rearing up whenever his mind goes blank, is threatening to overthrow him (them both), but he _cannot _speak, _cannot_ communicate anything that might help the boy sitting so pale and still in the corner of the carriage. Snape prays that Draco will have the sense not to speak, to stay quiet. Should he claim Draco followed him? Turned up only a few nights before? Narcissa -

_Narcissa. _

Narcissa who _knows_, who might have confessed -

No. No, Narcissa's instincts are to protect, and a confession from her would only be Draco's undoing. Terrified she might be, but after all, the Black women -

_Fuck. _Snape's fingernails dig into his fists, and he swallows thickly. _Bellatrix_. Bellatrix, the last fanatic; who had _been _there, watching when Severus had made the Vow; who doubts Severus's loyalty; who has no loyalties of her own, save to her Lord.

Sickened, he racks his brains for something to disprove this last. She's a Black; Draco is half-Black; Bellatrix loved her sisters as a child. Loves? Hunting back through his memories of her - the arch-Black Slytherin, with the hooded eyes and the grace even Lucius could never match (before Azkaban deranged her) - he remembers the year Andromeda left. He had seen Bella crying, once, out in the garden. And, after all, when her entreaties had failed to stop Narcissa, she hadn't resorted to force. Cautiously, Snape exhales. So much, then, for Bellatrix – he hopes so, anyway.  
**  
V.**

The carriage drops into a square, the centre of which is dominated by some large, dark and heavy shape. It's not an enclosed quadrangle; peering through the window, Snape spots alleys and a roadway - not that they'll have much chance to escape. As the other Death Eaters move away, starting to unlock the door (Crabbe, predictably can't find the key - after berating him through the window, Goyle remembers it's in his own sleeve), Draco shoots Snape a look of naked terror. Snape feels his stomach lurch, but says nothing, nodding back towards the seat. Draco drops back into it, and - to Snape's relief - appears to calm himself. He draws himself up when it's time to leave the carriage, and doesn't shrink even from Fenrir. Passing in front of Snape through the door, he squares his thin shoulders and raises his chin just a fraction too high.

Snape is not one for doomed youth or heroic gestures, but all the same, the sight makes his heart ache, a little. Held by Snape's fathomless stare, he passes out of the carriage and into the gathering of wizards waiting on the cobbles. Involuntarily, Snape takes a step to follow him, but is restrained. Aldous Mulciber, with eyes even inkier than Snape's own (and at this moment, faintly ironic), raises an eyebrow and precedes him, forcing Snape to walk at the rear, beside Greyback. Mercifully, this separates Greyback from the boy, but his own distance from Draco makes Snape uneasy. "What's going on?" he asks, impatient.

"Surprise," Fenrir smirks, voice thick and wet with slavering anticipation. Snape stills. 

"...where are the Dark Lord's headquarters, from here?" 

The smirk widens. "Beneath our feet."

The four or five figures who've received Draco start to move with him towards the large building that Snape can now discern as circular, surrounded by a circular lawn and railings. Mulciber, the only member of the group not to be masked, points his wand at the railings; they melt away, and behind them, part of the grass recedes. The aperture is square, exactly like a grave, and Snape can tell by Draco's shudder that the symbolism is not lost on him - for a second he falters, looks around as if for help. Silently, Snape wills him forwards, and he goes, disappearing beneath the ground.

Snape follows a few seconds later.

**VI.  
**

Obviously you can't Disapparate from here; otherwise _nobody_ would choose such an inconvenient entrance to a hideout.

The tunnels may be wide, but they're hellishly dark - and if the smell is familiar, it's not exactly pleasant. The tunnel bends sharply to the left, and then to the right - Snape is of the opinion that they've just circumvented the foundations of the circular building, confirmed when Mulciber stops beside a cold, curved wall. Someone (Goyle, probably) casts a _Lumos_, and in the flickering light (held up so Mulciber can select a stone), Snape can just make out Draco's profile, pale and stunned-looking. After a pause, Mulciber taps one of the stones, and the structure slides apart. They pass through, but do not continue - instead, they're bunched into a small, dark space, stinking of damp. Another pause. A longer pause.

"Oh, if you _will_ trust Macnair to do these things - " Mulciber's aggrieved tones ring out, and he slams the end of his wand into the brick. Suddenly they are in a light more powerful than the darkness, screamingly white, almost unbearable to the naked eye before it fades, coalesces from purple and black shadows to shapes; outlines; three people standing on a dais, one man kneeling before an occupied throne. The light stretches their brains, then resolves.

Seated on the throne is Lord Voldemort.

Kneeling before him is Lucius Malfoy.

"Father!" Draco's cry cannot be restrained, and it's full of the same shock that jolts Severus a second later, when he recognises Lucius as well. It isn't easy. The long white hair is yellowed, gnarled, obviously dead in parts. His face, stretched taut across the skull, has shadows where no shadows should be, and the eyes are terrible. He cringes when he hears Draco's voice, hides behind his shaking, stained hands.

The Dark Lord's eyes gleam. Grasping the arms on his throne, he leans forwards with an almost ecstatic smile. Beside him, Snape can see that the surprise appearance of Draco has left Wormtail and the Lestrange brothers slack-jawed with shock. Unable to wriggle free of his captors, Draco is calling and calling to Lucius, but not even Snape will move towards him now. Instead, Snape watches Voldemort's eyes burn brighter and brighter, his horn-nailed feet curl with pleasure on the marble floor. When he hisses something to Lucius, Snape decides he must speak.

"My Lord," he begins, but Voldemort stops him, raising one glistening hand, shiny with scar tissue and burns.

"One moment, Severus," he murmurs, beginning to smirk. "My, you _have_ done well, haven't you? Two unasked-for deeds. How very _noble_," he purrs, and although this sort of praise would usually spell instant death, for once - incredibly - it seems as if the Dark Lord's pleasure might be genuine. Light-headed, Snape entertains the brief hope that everything, implausibly, might turn out to be all right, before Voldemort's smile turns almost lascivious, moves back from Draco to his father.

"Lucius," he says slowly, "The time has come. Do it now."

A noise from Lucius that is almost a whimper. The Dark Lord's face darkens - Draco is struggling and shouting, and Snape wants to tell him to be _quiet_, he's trying to _hear_, but when the Dark Lord repeats the command, Lucius rises, slowly and painfully, and turns to his son. Either side of the throne, Rodolphus and Wormtail shuffle to attention.

At the full sight of his father, Draco's strugglings redouble, hands outstretched, making the chamber ring with his cries. Crabbe and Goyle are holding him fast, faces blank as if they can't hear the pathetic noise. Snape wishes he could be so calm; he can taste blood on the inside of his cheek, but otherwise it's as if he can't move. Lucius opens his mouth to speak, and can't - for an instant, his eyes flicker over to Severus's and lock there, and in that second Snape realises what the Dark Lord has asked him to do.

It's done before Severus can stop it.

Not looking at his son, Lucius wets his lips, swallows, and says it: "Kill the spare."

**VII.**

"Who gave you the authority? How _dare_ you enter into such an arrangement without my will? My consent?"

Snape, all colour blanched from his face and black eyes glittering, stares up from the body of Draco Malfoy, hands red with the blood that's bubbling onto the floor. There are no more plans. There is only time, and not much of that. "Narcissa Malfoy. She knew the boy's frailty, wanted to protect her son. I consented." He swallows, tries to begin again, "I was very wr -"

"What RIGHT does she have to exalt herself over such a worthless brat? Has she no loyalty -"

Draco gives a moan, turns his head; a second later blood runs out of his mouth and onto the marble. Snape sees little white chips in the red and can't restrain himself. "Narcissa Malfoy has never received the Dark Mark!"

"Are you calling my wife a traitor?" 

Snape gazes at him, beyond anger now. "I'm merely _wondering_," he hisses, in a tone that makes Lucius step back, so full is it of venom, "why we're killing _this_ Malfoy when he came closer to killing Dumbledore than _you_ ever did."

"But not quite so far as you," Lucius says, tone unmistakably nasty. "Flattered as I am, Severus, that you should have taken it upon yourself to - ah - _assist_ Draco, I can hardly see why my wife should have enlisted _you_ -"

" - possibly because she knew _you_ wouldn't be capable of it?"

Rodolphus steps between them, just in time. Disgusted, Snape drops back, turning again to the small, broken shape on the floor. Draco's eyes are wide and shocked, but the light's fading and - _Hades_, the boy might not be able to see him. 

Might think he's all alone.

Resting a hand on Draco's chest as if for balance, he stares up at Voldemort and _plea - _and _negotiates_. "My Lord, this boy is dying. If he dies - " having kept his voice steady, to have it crack now would be too incriminating, _keep calm, just _keep calm _and this'll work_ - "I die." Snape takes a long, necessary breath. His hands are shaking, and he knows he must either look like a coward or a pederast, pleading for his life over the - over, almost, the corpse of the Malfoy heir. _Coward_, he decides grimly, plunging on. "I am your loyal servant. I have _never_ betrayed you. When Quirrell failed you, I did not fail. When Crouch was discovered, I did not betray myself or you. I have _sat _with the Order at supper and meetings, and _no one _has ever suspected me. Even when this brat failed, the son of a man who has tried _so many times_ to deny you, it was _I _who stepped in and murdered Albus Dumbledore. _Why_ would I have sworn to do this if not through loyalty to you? If I was Dumbledore's friend, how could I have killed him? I have never let you down. I _will_ never let you down. Do not allow this man -" he points to Lucius, "- to ruin me."

The Dark Lord looks from Snape to Lucius. Through Draco's shirt, Snape can feel his heartbeat. Its flutterings make Snape's stomach clench with fear, and he can't help the cry that forces out, "My Lord, we're running out of _time_."

Something flickers in Lucius's eyes, then, and he half starts forwards as Snape, as close to hysteria as he'll ever get, rehearses his list of achievements in the Dark Lord's service. To the others he must look like the worst sort of coward, begging - like Avery, or worse, Wormtail - for his life, for continued favour. He can't bring himself to care. Desperate, he breaks off at the end of this second list, and waits. He can hear Fenrir's ragged breathing above them, heavy with blood-lust. In his eyeline are Lucius's shaking hands. Forcing himself back under control, Snape licks his dry lips. "I have always been your most loyal advisor," he repeats, head bowed.

"...he does have a point, My Lord," says Mulciber. "Given the loss of Bellatrix Lestrange -"

" - Bellatrix has been captured?" Snape's head whips up, shocked. The Dark Lord frowns, displeased.

"Dead." There is a silence while something like a shadow crosses his face. "...you have a point, Aldous. Come forward."

Astonished beyond measure, Snape looks from Mulciber to Rodolphus: the older man's face tells him nothing. _Bellatrix_. ...Merlin. The Order, no doubt. A blow for the Death Eaters, which was surely cause for celebration, except that, kneeling beside Draco's body, Snape finds it hard to remember which side he's on. Voldemort peers down at Draco. "Can he be healed?"

"Possibly." Mulciber is infuriatingly calm, but Snape - surprised and grateful for his earlier intervention - bites his tongue. The death of Bellatrix is an unexpected blessing; as far as real intellects go, the Death Eaters are now more or less inquorate, and Voldemort - although evil, paranoid, sadistic and more or less _insane_ - probably has enough sense to realise this. It may save him. Mulciber directs his wand at Draco's heart and a fine red mist rises. 

Eileen Prince, although she never forgave her husband for being forced to work, had been a Healer. Of all the strange and alarming things he'd watched through the keyhole of his mother's surgery, this business of aura revealing disturbed him most. You could learn Occlumency and shut your mind against intruders; but the revelation of one's self through _colour_ seemed to be inescapable. Whoever you were, a Healer's wand could show it; your character, your ambition, your mortality.

Draco's aura is the colour of blood.

"...he's weak. If you want to save them, my Lord, I suggest you allow me to act now." There is the faintest hint of subordination in the Death Eater's eyes, and - not for the first time that evening - Snape finds himself wondering what Mulciber is about. Lucius has drawn blood from his bitten lips, gazing ceaselessly at his son, but now his eyes - with everyone else's - go to Voldemort, waiting.

"Heal the boy." His tone is one of dismissal; shoulders slumping with relief, Snape turns towards Mulciber, eager to assist. Voldemort's voice stops him.

"Not you, Severus."

"My Lord? I -"

"- you have seen me kill before, haven't you?"

The question is such a _stupid_ one that Snape barely represses the urge to respond in kind. "...yes, my Lord," he mutters, with an approximation of deference.

"And yet you swear you have acted only in loyalty and due obedience to me? That you have not _harboured_ disloyalty?"

_Ah._

Snape raises his head, and with frank, blank, black eyes, makes his promise. He knows Voldemort is not strong enough to read his mind.

"Very well. Mulciber, keep the boy alive until dawn. That, Severus, will give you the time you need to brew the Veritaserum."

Despite himself, Snape falters. "Veritaserum?"

"You say that both of you are loyal. But, just as the boy outran his father -" a smirk returns to Voldemort's bloodless lips, and there are a few smiles in the chamber, " - so may he have outrun you. You will brew the Veritaserum, and tomorrow, in my presence, you will administer it. Until then, he is Mulciber's responsibility. If," he murmurs, eyes narrowing ominously, "you have acted as you say, this separation will be no inconvenience. I shall see you at dawn. Mulciber, bring the boy to the Upper Gallery. Rabastan, Rodolphus, you know your night's work. Macnair -"

" - my Lord, I have no ingredients. It takes a whole - "

The Dark Lord's smirk widens."You'll find you have everything you need. Macnair, show Snape to his quarters. Now."

As Voldemort turns away, Snape hears a high, insolent laugh; looking back helplessly (for Macnair is already leading him, and Voldemort's gaze is inescapable) he sees Dolohov and Mulciber bending over Draco, and feels a flare of protective rage. Then Macnair opens a door and ushers him through it; just as Mulciber lifts Draco, both are suddenly lost to view, and Snape doesn't know whether things are getting better or worse.

**VIII.  
**"How kind of Snape to shelter the poor, half-naked boy."

"Noble."

"Generous."

"Certainly his wounded prettiness can have nothing do with it."

That shrieking laugh again, and then they lapse into Russian; hands shaking, Snape has to set down his vial. Closing his eyes against a sudden lurch of fear, he tries again to pour the vial of Jobberknoll blood into the larger flask, but misses; pale green liquid splashes onto his boots. Snape curses, casting a Cleaning charm to absorb it, but his nerves are shot and he knows it. _WHY isn't Mulciber with DRACO? _Scrubbing at the desk, where the scattered drops of bird blood are starting to simmer, he ignores (and thus confronts, by omission) the possibility that Draco is already dead.

Murmuring to each other, Mulciber and Dolohov relax - Snape can tell from the creaks that they're leaning against the door to his workroom, although "cell" might be a better term. _If Draco was dead, I would be too_, he tells himself, but the memory of the Vow is far less immediate than that of Draco himself, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

Mechanically, he continues to prepare the potion's raw ingredients, glancing from time to time around the room. It was, as Voldemort had hinted, well-prepared - evidently the Death Eaters had been here for some time. The abundance of books, however, revealed its original purpose - if not a library, then perhaps a "cell" in the monastic sense. The apparatus needed to brew Veritaserum in a single night was also close at hand; this proved nothing, though - Snape had often seen it brewed for use on... prisoners. _Most of whom subsequently died for their answers_.

This is madness. Draco's answers will undo not only himself but Snape; not only Snape but the Order. He moves around the room; starts, doubts, stops and gives up. Mulciber and Dolohov's footsteps die away along the corridor, and all is quiet.

The sole window in Snape's chamber is sealed, but a thin, grimy half-light is beginning to seep through the boards. Blinking at it like some half-forgotten thing, Snape grows still, lets his knife fall to the ground. Then he goes to the window, rests his forehead against the wood, and does not move for a long time.

When he straightens up, he has a plan.

"Aguamenti!"

**IX.**

When a gleeful Wormtail unlocks Snape's cell the following morning, he is disconcerted to find its occupant breakfasting comfortably, drinking coffee (black, boiling and bitter), and eating toast. The man's obvious equilibrium makes Wormtail uneasy, even a little cross; it doesn't seem _right_ for Snape to be so calm, so confident about the contents of the little glass bottle. Even his potion debris is tidy; the ends of chopped Jobberknoll feathers, the leaves of the Iredesian tree and a few flakes of scapola root are neatly parcelled on the corner of his desk. All the utensils are sparkling.

Snape doesn't return his greeting, only stares impassively for a few seconds, puts his napkin (linen, Wormtail notices, twitchily, _and monogrammed_) on the table. Taking the glass bottle in one hand, he rises - with a grave courtesy that seems to Wormtail almost radioactive with irony, were irony invisible and deadly and, oh wait, in this case it is - and waits to be lead from the room.

"To think that a year ago you were my assistant," Snape says as they pass along the corridors again. He sounds almost dreamy. Wormtail does not like this.

"Tell me, Peter," he continues, in that same wistful tone, that makes Wormtail's spine drip with unexpected ice, "do you ever miss your human hand?"

"Snape, what the -"

"Can't you open the door?" Snape glances at the doorhandle, where Wormtail's hand (the non-metal one) is apparently stuck. Glaring (flushing a little, a reaction that makes him look twelve even though his puppy fat has become a paunch, and his limp blond hair is grey and sparse), the latter mutters something and turns, starting to practise the complicated unlocking Charms necessary to let them back into the chamber. Rattled and with hackles raised, he's starting to go red in the face. Snape permits himself a silent smile when the door fails to open.

_"Imperio_," he whispers, and pushes inside Peter's brain.

**X.**

Aldous Mulciber was the cleverest wizard in his year at Durmstrang, and although his best friend liked to pretend otherwise, he would _still_ have been the cleverest had Antonin Dolohov ever done any homework. With Mulciber's intellect came a passion for research; with research, knowledge of the theory behind the Imperius Curse: theory that, inevitably, led to practice. Legilimency entertained him, and Occlumency was certainly an essential tool, but the Imperius surpassed both, for what was the point of knowing all the secrets of somebody's brain if you couldn't control them afterwards? Oh, there was always blackmail (look, not that Aldous much cared to, at Fenrir Greyback), but people had a tendency to do silly and hysterical things under blackmail, such as make annoying confessions and kill themselves. And Mulciber had learnt long ago that the best way to defeat your enemies was to keep them alive.

Although as far removed from the characteristics of "normal" humanity as one man could get, Aldous's knowledge of (loosely) human behaviour was unsurpassed. He could predict, almost without fault, the behaviour of individuals and groups. When he and Antonin had received (in grammatically perfect, if over-formal Russian) owls inviting them to the town of Hogsmeade (ugh), a few minutes' meeting with the last descendant of Salazar Slytherin had told Aldous all he needed to know about the former's potential.

His perception had yet to fail him. Which was why, that morning, Severus Snape was not the only one with a plan.

**XI.**

"Test it."

Snape raises his eyebrows slightly, pours a few drops of the colourless liquid onto Pettigrew's tongue. He hopes nobody notices the beads of sweat on his brow, formed through the effort of sustaining two massive spells simultaneously. Pettigrew whimpers twice, then swallows. Snape takes a step back and glances at Lord Voldemort.

He doesn't allow himself to look behind him, to the curved-back chair where Draco waits. He has caught a glimpse of bandages, he can hear the boy's slightly laboured breathing, and if his spine prickles and his heart feels like someone's closed a fist around it, well, both of those will just have to wait. The thought of the suspense Draco must be enduring is appalling, but they have to wait. Draco has to trust him. Draco is, at least, alive.

"Will you question him, my Lord, or should I?" He raises his eyebrows slightly, suggesting the same calm confidence that had disturbed Wormtail. It works – frowning slightly, the Dark Lord (_such_ a Pureblood, Snape reflects, blackly amused) replies with some asperity that Snape has done enough for the moment. Bowing acquiescence, Snape takes a further step, and folds his hands beside his back.

If his eyes are fixed on Pettigrew, nobody notices: everyone else's are fixed on Lord Voldemort.

"What is your name?"

_Predictable._

_P-P-Peter P-Pettigrew, called "Wormtail", ahaha. _"P-P-Peter P-Pettigrew, called "Wormtail", ahaha." Pettigrew's stammer and idiotic laugh sound entirely natural, and Snape is privately a little proud of the effect.

"Do you fear me?"

_Oh, honestly. He's the most terrifying Dark Wizard for a century and Pettigrew's a coward, what does he _suppose

_Y-yes, my Lord. I _– oh, Snape can't resist – _am terrified. I don't want to die_. "Y-yes, my Lord, I – am terrified. I don't want to die."

Pettigrew's eyes flicker nervously around the room (his _own_ movement, not that anyone in the room can tell). Gaining confidence, Snape smirks. "Perhaps I might be allowed to ask a question? Wormtail, what's your most humiliating memory?"

Pettigrew's terrified eyes lock with Snape's. He, too, has started to sweat.

**XII.**

Five minutes later, Pettigrew has attempted to chew through his own underlip but has, nevertheless made the Death Eaters believe he's taken Veritaserum. The complicated tale of how Wormtail was caught wanking over a picture of McGonagall is Snape's invention, but so convincing is Pettigrew that by the end Snape's started to wonder if it actually happened. He's heard Draco laughing once or twice, but is determined not to turn to him until ordered to do so. The laugh _must_ be token; if Draco thinks Pettigrew's generally under Veritaserum, he must be (like Snape, but for different reasons) wondering _what_ in Hades happens next. The Death Eaters are wondering too, but with rather more glee – most of them started as classroom bullies, after all, and this probably reminds them of Christmas in Slytherin.

Snape manages to keep smirking until he looks at Draco.

There's no dying Mulciber's genius, but it's still a nasty shock, the pattern of silver scars over his arms, and neck, and the side of his jaw. The neatly stitched cut in his lip, an astonishing violet. The black circles under his eyes that show what an awful night he must have had, and the set of his shoulders that dares anyone to say as much.

He's terrified.

….this is not really surprising.

Wetting his dry lips, Snape looks evenly at Draco, willing him to trust him, now they've come this far. Draco's eyes are wide with panic, but after a moment's hesitation, he opens his mouth. Silently relieved, Snape considers pushing inside his mind to warn him, but the effort of already controlling Pettigrew (whose protests flutter like a trapped butterfly at the back of Snape's brain) makes it too much of a risk. Tiredness throbs through him, nerves taut. It occurrs to him briefly that even if they manage _this,_ he has no idea how to protect them beyond the next few days, perhaps even the next few hours. It would be a sobering realisation, were there anything left to find funny.

Using one hand to tilt the boy's chin, he pours three drops of the water onto Draco's tongue. Waits.

Draco's frozen posture is fairly representative of those under Veritaserum, and the look of panic and confusion in his eyes suggests nothing untoward. Snape tells himself this as dispassionately as he can, trying to ignore how sick he feels; with fear, and, obscurely, guilt. Unable to help him, Snape waits for realisation to hit.

"Is your name Draco Malfoy?"

"Y-yes." He sounds wary, slightly hesitant. Snape's face doesn't change. 

"Are you the son of Lucius Malfoy, and of Narcissa Black?"

"I am." The Death Eaters are starting to get restive, rattled by the ease of the questions, but Snape's glad; their confusion is a mask for Draco's. He asks two or three more of the same sort, silently praying that Draco uses the pause to find his voice, to realise what's happening. It's a fine balance, though; he can hear Voldemort shifting behind him, drumming sharp nails (really, having an incorporeal Dark Lord was _more_ than preferable), and knows that time is running out.

He swallows. "Are you loyal to the Dark Lord?"

A pause, and then, into the ringing silence, "Yes." 

Everyone starts talking at once, some excited, others angry: Snape thinks he can detect Lucius's voice, weak and high, amongst the babbling of the others. Holding onto the back of Draco's chair, even Mulciber is looking a little shocked.

Snape's mind starts racing.

"Why did you fail to kill Dumbledore?" He has to push him, hurt him; the Death Eaters won't be satisfied with loyalty, they want blood. First Pettigrew and now Malfoy, they're thinking. Ignoring the twist of his stomach, he keeps going. "Why couldn't you?" _Think, boy, _think.

"I got scared," says Draco quickly, fighting the rising inflection. "I - the old fool taunted me. Threatened my mother."

"Would you have liked -" Snape begins again, but Fenrir's voice barks out from the crowd.

"Snape's being soft on him! My Lord, if you want the truth, let _me _ask the questions." He takes a step forward; Snape hears Draco's involuntary gasp. Hating himself, he brings the next question down with a ferocity that surprises anyone in the room.

"Do you think the Dark Lord would have permitted anything to happen to her? Do you care for your mother more than your Lord and yet presume to call yourself faithful? Did you _doubt, _Malfoy?" 

The boy's eyes change and Snape can no longer look at them. He can only hear the awful silence before Draco answers, getting longer and longer and more incriminating, and in his terror, he wrenches the boy from his seat.

"- I doubted," Draco chokes out, half-strangled by Snape's hand at the neck of his robes. "I cared for my mother more, I forgot that the Dark Lord was all powerful. I thought there was another way, I thought -" At some point Draco has stopped struggling and started crying, and Snape can feel his boy's body shuddering instead of twisting away. His face is red, wet with tears and mucus; his fair hair sticks to his bruised forehead. A moment ago, the others were loudly debating his sincerity; now Draco's sobs are the loudest thing in the room.

...Snape lets him go, attempts to set him on his feet again. He touches the boy's arm, to steady him, and doesn't know whether the repulsive shove is real or feigned.

"Your lack of faith will not be forgotten, Draco," the Dark Lord murmurs, looking meditatively at him.

Draco shivers and dips his head, Snape's stomach clenching until he has the sense to answer with a mumbled "No, my Lord." Snape grits his teeth, waiting.

"But it seems on this occasion, your intentions did at least surpass your miserable abilities. Miserable, but superior to your father's," he adds, giving Lucius a look that makes the other man pale. Draco makes a bitter noise, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

"Perhaps," the Dark Lord muses aloud, "you hope to take after your aunt. We must hope so. Now," he hisses, "get out of my sight." 

Half-staggering, Draco obeys. Snape moves automatically to follow him. It is a mistake.

"Severus," the Dark Lord hisses, and Snape feels his flesh creeping at the name Draco, he realises, has never used. Eyes blank, he turns back to the circle of Death Eaters and waits.

"One more test before you go." Involuntarily, Snape glances at Pettigrew, blinking glassily in a little space of his own. No. Too easy, too -

"You will test the Veritaserum again," Voldemort smiles, and suddenly Snape cannot breathe. "This time, on someone neither a child nor a fool." 

_Shit. _He _knows_, Snape realises, mind blank with terror for a second before he can control it. He lifts his head, and sees for the first time that he is not the only person in the room who is afraid. Lucius Malfoy, battered and thin, is now also ashen with fear. His grey eyes (like Draco's) meet Snape's, and for a second and for the second time, an understanding passes between them.

The Dark Lord makes his choice. "Mulciber, come here."


End file.
